India, which maintains good relations with Iran and has strategic interests in that country, has walked the trapeze wire regarding the issue of its nuclear programme.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during an online address to the United Nations Security Council warned that the current arms embargo installed against Iran, set to expire in October, would enable the regime in Tehran to arm itself with Russian and Chinese weapon systems. “If you fail to act, Iran will be free to purchase Russian-made fighter jets that can strike up to a 3,000 kilometer radius, putting cities like Riyadh, New Delhi, Rome, and Warsaw in Iranian crosshairs,” Pompeo added. In a tweet posted earlier on 23 June, Pompeo had alluded to this same line of argument on possibility of Iran purchasing new Russian and Chinese military hardware, also adding a map showing what the country’s military reach could be in both Europe and Asia.
While ratcheting the ante against Iran has been a near permanent fixture of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, despite his unilateral decision to withdraw the US from the extensive Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between the P5+1 countries and Iran in 2015 after months of arduous negotiations, culminating with the UNSC resolution 2231. The withdrawal from the agreement has not won Trump the global support he needed to functionally try and place Iran into a corner. However, the results were quite the contrary, with European states developing their own mechanisms such as INSTEX, which allows Iran to trade with Europe despite sanctions against it, and now China is also openly questioning the US over attempting to continue to apply unilaterally sanction against Tehran via the UN despite not being part of the JCPOA any more.
India, which maintains good relations with Iran and has strategic interests in that country, has walked the trapeze wire regarding the issue of its nuclear programme. Through the administration of President Barack Obama, New Delhi was pressurised to decrease its oil purchase from Iran, which constitutes majority of the annual India–Iran trade dynamic. Under the Obama administration, Iran, which usually maintained a top three position as an oil supplier to an energy hungry India, dropped to seventh as New Delhi tried to balance the pressure being emitted by Washington. Here, it is also known that India prodded the Iranians along towards the JCPOA during bilateral meets between the two countries, with New Delhi trying to market the larger economic and political benefits of the deal to the Iranians.
During the negotiations, India continued to buy oil from Iran, and depositing payments in a bank account in Kolkata as financial transfers were restricted due to sanctions. At a point, this bank account had amassed more than $6 billion in payments for Iran. During this period, an economically suffering Iran pressurised India to make these payments happen, including a proposal to open Iranian bank branches in Mumbai and alternatively using third party systems. The banks proposal, however, was shot down by New Delhi at that time in order to not complicate its relations with the US. During the Obama administration, India secured waivers in order to make some payments to Iran using Halkbank in Turkey. Today, Halkbank is in the middle of a politically charged high-profile case in the US over the bank’s dealings with Iranian entities using front companies to evade US sanctions. Meanwhile, in January 2019, India allowed Iran to open bank branches in Mumbai, this time around the argument that it needs this mechanism for the development of the strategically important Chabahar port project. However, this decision was taken during a period of increased pressure on New Delhi to help the Trump administration rein Iran in, specifically under then Trump’s National Security Advisor and Iran hawk John Bolton’s tenure. India’s need to push back over its strategic autonomy and sovereign decision to maintain ties with Iran clashed with the views in Washington DC. In April 2019, reports claimed the US has said increased sanctions against Iran will not impact the Chabahar port, which while the project being in Iran, also helps the US with its agendas in Afghanistan, albeit in a limited manner. Previously, US teams visiting India indirectly pushed New Delhi in the crossfires initiated by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) of 2017, which not only brought the Iran ties into question, but also put India–Russia defence relations under the scanner, specifically over Moscow’s sale of S400 missile systems to India.
Despite occasional respites provided by the US, Iran remains a contentious issue between India and the US. With New Delhi steadily finding more common ground with the US on the global stage, pushed by the rapid rise of an unfettered China both politically and militarily, closer strategic ties with US will require to be a two-way street despite the White House’s strong words against the recent incidents in Ladakh that saw China kill 20 Indian soldiers. In fact, after the UNSC debate where Pompeo spoke, the Chinese released a statement asking the US to stop attempting to activate unilateral sanctions against Iran, which is a signatory to Beijing’s massive Belt and Road (BRI) project. “The root cause of the current crisis is the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and re-imposition of unilateral sanctions against Iran. We urge the United States to stop its illegal unilateral sanctions and ‘long-arm jurisdiction,’ and return to the right track of observing the JCPOA and Resolution 2231,” Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the UN said.
In the world of Trump’s style of transactional diplomacy, Pompeo mentioning New Delhi with regard to Iran’s future weapons capabilities at a time when debates are abound over the need for closer Indo–US strategic partnership in light of the India–China border tensions in Ladakh may be just that, a push for New Delhi to show stronger conviction against what are perceived as threats to American interests. However, also in Trump’s style of diplomacy, loose statements are sometimes just that, loose statements, with not much afterthought given. However in today’s global disorder, reading between the lines is often where political and strategic messaging is sought, whether it is by chance or by design. The luxury of grey areas in diplomacy may fast be eroding.
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Kabir Taneja is a Fellow with Strategic Studies programme. His research focuses on Indias relations with West Asia specifically looking at the domestic political dynamics ...
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